João Carlos Pena

João is a postdoctoral fellow at the Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab at UNESP, Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil. During the last few years, he has been studying the influences of urbanization on biodiversity and ecological processes. He is especially interested in understanding how environmental characteristics of urban landscapes are related to functional aspects of animal communities inhabiting highly stressful urban contexts, such as streetscapes. Currently João is leading a research network with the aim of assessing the relationships between urbanization and predator-prey associations by distributing dummy caterpillar models in all Brazilian state capitals. His research interests include ornithology, ecological modeling, spatial ecology, landscape planning and urban ecology.